8th July 2019
Geneva, Switzerland
Last week, the UK joined countries from around the world at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) annual Aid for Trade Global Review, calling on our trading partners to help boost developing countries’ participation in the global trading system. Trade is a key driver of economic growth and can trigger positive changes in developing economies; helping […]
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11th January 2016
Geneva, Switzerland
The Geneva institutions are facing big questions at the start of 2016. Will the humanitarian system adapt to the challenges of protracted conflicts and unsustainable mass migration? Will the World Trade Organization (WTO) rediscover its role at the heart of the global economy? Can we respond effectively to the growing threat of pandemics and the […]
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14th December 2015
Geneva, Switzerland
Occasionally you come across a fact that changes how you think. One such moment for me was when I discovered how the world had managed to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving extreme poverty and hunger between 1990 and 2015. It turns out that we met it five years early, meaning that nearly 1 […]
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16th November 2015
Geneva, Switzerland
How can Geneva help Paris? I was going to write this week about antimicrobial resistance, the stealthily spreading obsolescence of antibiotics that will cost the world an estimated 10 million lives a year by 2050 if we don’t act now. But after Friday, that somehow didn’t feel right. With over 130 mostly young people massacred […]
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5th October 2015
Geneva, Switzerland
I’ve just spent the weekend at the Milan Expo. Over a hundred countries showcasing themselves in a tradition of world fairs that stretches back to the nineteenth century and the “first World Expo” at Crystal Palace in 1851. The most expensive pavilion was the UAE extravaganza, coming in at allegedly just shy of £100 million. […]
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11th May 2015
Geneva, Switzerland
Grahame Greene’s novel about Geneva ignores it, focusing instead on the nasty foibles of the very rich. And if they mention it at all, modern novelists writing about Geneva use the UN at best as a backdrop for international intrigue but more often as a metaphor for international impotence. For someone preparing to take up […]
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5th September 2013
Washington DC, USA
I had the fortune to spend summer on the beautiful shores of Lake Geneva representing the UK at the World Trade Organization (WTO), a 159 country organisation that governs international economic relations. It was a welcome respite from the heat and humidity of DC during the summer – several weeks soaking up the fresh mountain […]
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21st March 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
I had the pleasure of going to the Washington International Trade Association discussion about the 2011 Congressional Trade Agenda. It was an opportunity for the DC trade community to hear direct from key Congressional trade staffers what trade issues they thought would be keeping Congress busy this year. It was an off-the-record discussion, so I’ll […]
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2nd February 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
As governments around the world continue to look for the best way to stimulate sustainable economic recovery, we in the trade policy field offer a simple answer: trade is the biggest stimulus we can give right now. And thanks to the trade liberalisation we’ve witnessed since the last big, multilateral trade agreement was reached in […]
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